Ideas: A History from Fire to Freud

5. Ibid., page 24. See Moynahan, Op. cit., page 216, for other measures, including celibacy for all clerics above deacon.

6. Grant, Op. cit., page 24.

7. David Knowles and Dimitri Obolensky, The Christian Centuries, volume 2, The Middle Ages, London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1969, pages 336–337.

8. Ibid., Op. cit., page 337.

9. Reinhard Bendix, Kings or People: Power and the Mandate to Rule, Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1978, page 23.

10. Ibid., page 27.

11. Ibid., page 29.

12. Ibid., page 31. For Ambrose, see Canning, Op. cit., page 34.

13. Bendix, Op. cit., page 32. No less important to the developing notion of kinghood, and its relation to the papacy, was the notorious ‘Donation of Constantine’, now generally agreed to have been a forgery produced by sources very close to the pope himself. ‘It is impossible,’ says Walter Ullmann, ‘to exaggerate the influence which this fabrication had upon medieval Europe generally and on the papacy specifically.’ This idea, based on the Legenda Sancti Silvestri, a novelistic best-seller of the fifth century, alleged that Constantine had been cured of leprosy by the pope, Sylvester, and in contrition had prostrated himself before His Holiness, divesting himself of his imperial emblems – including his crown – and had performed the office of strator, or groom, and had led the papal horse for a short distance. The message could not be plainer. Walter Ullmann, A History of Political Thought: The Middle Ages, London: Penguin Books, 1965, page 59.

14. Cantor, Op. cit., pages 178–179. Charlemagne was subjected to a bizarre – but revealing – encounter in Rome in 800. The pope of the time, Leo III, was unsuccessful and unpopular. So unpopular that he had been beaten up by a Roman mob, charged with ‘moral turpitude’ and forced to seek Charlemagne’s protection. When the emperor arrived in Rome for the trial of Leo, when he purged himself of the charges against him, Charlemagne went to visit the tomb of St Peter, on Christmas day 800, to pray. As he rose from his prayers, Leo suddenly stepped forward and placed the crown on the king’s head. This was a crude attempt to reassert the right of the papacy to award the imperial title and Charlemagne was not at all pleased – he said he would never have entered the church had he known what the pope intended. Cantor, Op. cit., page 181. See also Canning, Op. cit., page 66, for a discussion of Carolingian theocratic ideas.

15. Bendix, Op. cit., page 33.

16. Cantor, Op. cit., page 195. See also Canning, Op. cit., pages 60–61.

17. David Levine, At the Dawn of Modernity, Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2001, page 18.

18. Cantor, Op. cit., page 203.

19. Ibid., pages 218–223. See also Canning, Op. cit., page 75, for Otto and his imperial affectations.

20. Cantor, Op. cit., page 218.

21. Ibid., page 244.

22. Colish, Op. cit., page 227.

23. Cantor, Op. cit., page 341.

24. Colish, Op. cit., page 228.

25. Marina Warner, Alone of All Her Sex, London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1976, pages 147–148.

26. Levine, Op. cit., page 74.

27. Colish, Op. cit., page 235. See also Moynahan, Op. cit., page 272.

28. Colish, Op. cit., page 237.

29. Cantor, Op. cit., page 249.

30. Colish, Op. cit., page 245.

31. Canning, Op. cit., page 85.

32. Cantor, Op. cit., pages 254–255.

33. Ibid., page 258. See also: Canning, Op. cit., page 88.

34. Moynahan, Op. cit., page 218. See Canning, Op. cit., pages 98ff, for the debate sparked by Gregory. See also: Cantor, Op. cit., page 262.

35. Cantor, Op. cit., page 267.

36. Ibid., page 268.

37. Elisabeth Vodola, Excommunication in the Middle Ages, Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1986, pages 2–3.

38. Ibid., page 4.

39. Ibid., page 10.

40. In the early Middle Ages monarchs usually lent their weight to church decisions, so that excommunicants lost their civil rights too. This derived from the Roman concept of infamia, which disqualified immoral persons and criminals from voting.

41. Also, people who didn’t know that an excommunicant was an excommunicant were also judged not to be contaminated. Vodola, Op. cit., page 25.

42. Ibid., page 29.

43. Ibid., page 32. See also: Moynahan, Op. cit., page 87.

44. Vodola, Op. cit., page 52.

45. Cantor, Op. cit., page 271.

46. Ibid., page 290. Moynahan, Op. cit., pages 186–187 for Christian losses.

47. Moynahan, Op. cit., pages 190ff.

48. Cantor, Op. cit., pages 292–293.